E3: What The F%@K Is Happening To Beyond Good & Evil?
When the trailer for Beyond Good & Evil came to an end at Ubisoft’s E3 conference, I can imagine a couple friends of mine thinking something like this:
“Ahh yea this is that random game no one knows of but Charles rambled about for a little while and keeps expecting at every E3.”
Well gah damn it, it finally happened. At an Air BnB on the edge of downtown LA, I completely lost it when a sentient pig appeared on screen. He wasn’t who I thought he was, but I was at least spot on with what game I thought I was watching a CG trailer for.
After things settled down, more and more information started to come out about the game and…
There’s a Space Monkey program!
Sweet!
It’ll give players early access as we build this game!
Alright…cool. The original was a story-driven single player title so this is kind of str…
It’s multiplayer with a connected universe and multiple planets to visit! You create your own character!
Huh?
It’s a prequel!
WHAT?!
Alright alright. Ubisoft and the team heading up BG&E 2 are clearly working on something different from the original planned trilogy that the first game was leading into. The 2nd game that had been teased clearly had alpha footage of players using Jade again, but lets take a look at what we’re potentially getting.
A clip of early gameplay in a dev diary released the same day the trailer debuted displayed seamless transition from ground to sky to space and it looked pretty damn impressive. Scatterings of details reveal that we’ll be space pirates that start small and work our way toward having a crew and spaceship of our own, able to go to different planets in System 3 (the starting city is Ganesha, shown in the trailer).
The politics and social conflict of the original game are what really made me want more from the franchise but I don’t know if we’ll get that from 2. Despite this, I’ve had a desire for a fun space pirate game since I first watched Cowboy Bebop. The expectations have shifted but I’m still pretty excited for this game. There are some elements involving different cultures representing the society of “Old Earth” in this game, so there’s even a chance that I’ll get some of the intrigue I fell in love with in the original title.
Beyond Good & Evil was a great but obscure game. My hope is that we’re not getting a full on, open world “Ubisoftening” for the BG&E world, but something fun that at least leads to more titles for the series. I’m a gah damn Space Monkey now. What say you?
UPDATE:
Here’s the new, in-engine footage that was dropped
